fandomhigh | Living on the Outskirts, Friday, Period 2

Today when students entered the classroom, they might notice how the usual pastries were completely absent. The seating set-up was the same, if only because the teacher had walked in to see the seats all shoved aside and had decided, to hell with it, he wasn't going to make the attempt to rearrange them. Oh. And the room smelled like burning brimstone. A little.

//Sick bloody joke,// the leather-wrapped teen who had taken a seat on top of the teacher's desk was grumbling. Well, 'grumbling.' Talking directly into the students' heads was more like it. And he wasn't even particularly good at it yet, considering the way he had to pause every few words in order to round up his focus all over again. //'A guide to fitting in... for those not meant to?' Really?//

Today's class might be a touch counter-productive.

//If yer not meant to... yer not meant to. World's got a pecking order to it. We... can't all be superheroes or rock stars or... prom kings. And a person'll just get burned if they set their sights... too high. Whose idea was it, having th'likes of me teach this? 'Those not meant to.' Plonkers.// Was young, skinny, burning Jonothon a little grumpy? Yes. Yes he was. //Th'way to fit in... is to find somebody who... happens to be as big a freak as you are. Anyone else... is probably just trying t'make themselves... feel better.//

He cast a look around the room, chestnut-coloured eyes glowing fire-hot for a moment.

//Tell me I'm wrong. Go on. Try.//

... That was probably about as close to an assignment as the class was going to get from Jonothon today, yes. So, go on. Tell him he's wrong.

[Open!]

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Natalie shrugged a shoulder. "You have to have been like this to become the kind of guy who'd choose this class topic," she said, in that utterly neutral tone of hers. She noticed the wall had suddenly become interesting to him, yes. "To have a hope in hell of being convincing."

//And is it at all convincing?//

Because maybe, if someday he was at a point where he really could believe in the sort of drivel taught in a class like this, he could... attempt to lighten up. A little. It wasn't like he ever would fit in, not as he was, but people here didn't seem to be running and screaming or anything.

So... that was something.

"It's convincing enough," she said. "I'm still not sure why I'm in this class and I think the outskirts are fine when they're your own choice, but you believe what you teach, and it's easy to see."

Jono nodded a little, fidgeted a little more, and then finally looked her way.

//What d'you suppose would have made th'class worthwhile... for you?// He was still pretty new to the outskirts himself. He'd always been something of a womanizer, a party animal, crawling out of pubs he still wasn't old enough to drink in, bringing a girl home on either arm whenever he could get away with it without Gayle noticing. Maybe knowing what people who chose to be there wanted to know... would help him figure out what it was that he needed in order to survive being there by necessity.

Natalie shrugged a shoulder, just a little. "I don't know," she said, honestly, even if it wasn't particularly helpful. "I'm fine with who and where I am. Doesn't mean I dislike the class, or don't find it interesting. It's just that... what do you teach someone who honestly doesn't care about fitting in?"

//Maybe nothing,// Jonothon replied, //if they're doing just fine where they're at.//

He gave his boot another good scuff against the leg of the desk that he was sitting on, and then shrugged his shoulders.

//And... especially if they're comfortable... in their own skin.//

He definitely wasn't that.

"You'll get there, at some point." That was said with the same kind of neutrality that she used to convey most things. "I do believe they like to tell us that's a part of growing up."

//They usually still have all their skin t'be comfortable in.//

Grumbling for the sake of grumbling, that. But Jono was fidgeting a little less, at least.

//There're worse places to be right now, at least. Even if... maybe I'm not qualified t'teach this class... just yet.//

"Probably not." Definitely not. "And the skin is only metaphorical."

That was her slightly nicer way of saying grumbling wouldn't help him.

//I know.//

It was hard to not feel hollowed out in far more metaphorical ways than literal, when you were Jono Starsmore.

... He'd... kind of grow out of that, at least.

//Maybe you're right. Maybe I'll... even thank you for this talk. Someday.//

"Mmhmm. I'll probably see you once you're back to usual, you can tell me your verdict then."

And she'd try not to poke at his teen trauma.

Living on the Outskirts, Friday, Period 2

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